


It's Alright

by WickerBag



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Blood, Character Death, Gen, Not Canon Compliant, Suicidal Thoughts, not suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24710629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickerBag/pseuds/WickerBag
Summary: Moriarty is shot. Watson finds him.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 21





	It's Alright

**Author's Note:**

> Major trigger warning for suicidal ideation. The protagonist's thoughts about his impending (non-suicide) death are a significant part of the story. Please be safe. 
> 
> This story takes place at an unspecified time during "Reichenbach Falls". It does not comply with canon events and the events leading up to it are left vague on purpose.

Smears of blood on the wall.

Spatters of blood on the ground.

Jim Moriarty leaves a crimson trace as he makes his way down the grey hallway. The door at the end seems a mile away and doesn't lead anywhere important, but it is a goal he can focus on.

He reaches it, eventually, though he does not remember how. His entire torso feels on fire. Opening the door is agony. He has to use his body weight to force the handle down, and he staggers into an empty warehouse.

Turns out, it is the last step he ever takes.

His knees give out and hit the ground. The pain in his abdomen shoots up, white-hot and nauseating. He blacks out for a second – couldn't have been longer than a second, for he comes to quickly enough to feel his face impact the rough concrete.

 _Try to leave a handsome corpse, Jimmy_ , he admonishes himself.

He tries to turn over but there is no strength left in his limbs. He can't manage more than a twinge of annoyance at that and settles down to wait.

Now that he can no longer focus on keeping himself upright, the noise in his brain picks up. Any other time, this cacophony of thoughts and emotions would have him clambering for a distraction. Now though, armed with the knowledge that it will soon be silenced forever, he can bear it. He is almost relieved.

Almost, for there is also the strong undercurrent of irritation in his mind. This isn't how he was supposed to go out. He had a _plan_ , and yes, plans change, but his plan was _brilliant_. But this? Dying from a random bullet by a random cop? It's infuriatingly anticlimactic.

Or is it? He's faintly surprised that he can't muster up the rage he so often felt in his life. Instead, besides the annoyance and relief, there is curiosity – this is, after all, a wholly new experience for him. There is also fear, on an instinctual level. His now useless body protests frantically against becoming obsolete.

He ignores it.

The minutes tick by.

Why the hell does it have to take so long?

* * *

He does not know how long he lies there, staring at the concrete floor, waiting to die and being _bored_ , and isn't that the story of his life? He hears steps, someone approaching him, and he prays to the god he does not believe in that it's not a paramedic, here to cart him off to a hospital. If there is one thing Jim shares with ordinary people, it is a hatred of hospitals.

The steps falter when they enter the warehouse, then pick up speed as they approach his prone body. They slow, then stop. Male, military, short stature, trainers. Jim groans inwardly. _Of all the people..._

A hand hesitatingly touches his shoulder, then grips him firmly and he's turned around. Jim can't quite suppress a gasp of pain, and only then does he notice the blood trickling from his mouth.

He's pleased because he knows that it makes the Cheshire grin he now gives John Watson all the more unsettling. “Hi, Johnny-boy,” he rasps.

Watson's face is drawn and tight. “Moriarty.” His tone is neutral, but in his eyes, in the twitch of his hands, in the tenseness of his shoulders Jim can read myriad emotions and he drinks them in; incredulity, relief, guilt, fear, anger, exhaustion.

The guilt is briefly interesting, for it was not Watson who shot him. But the boring truth is easy to figure out – Watson is _relieved_ to see him dying and evidently believes that “good people” should not feel this way. Jim would roll his eyes if it weren't for the lethargy settling in.

The doctor insists on going through the motions. Ignores Jim's protests as he pushes up his blood-soaked shirt, checks the entry wound, carefully feels around for the exit wound on his back, judges the angle, the blood loss.

“What's the verdict, doc?” Jim grins. Talking is painful and makes his lungs feel wet and full, but he enjoys needling the man. He might as well entertain himself while he waits to die.

Watson straightens his shirt back down, an odd act of courtesy, but does not reply. Instead, he whips out his mobile and dials a short number. He ignores Jim's displeased growl. His words to the emergency services are clipped and precise, his directions to their location accurate. “Male, gunshot wound to the torso, suspect massive internal bleeding.” He does not mention Moriarty's name.

“They won't get here in time,” Jim rasps.

“No, they won't,” Watson replies quietly.

That makes him smirk. “Who was the lucky shot?”

Watson gives him a look. “Why, want to haunt her?” he asks, eliciting a surprised laugh from Jim. It quickly turns into a coughing fit, blood gushing from his mouth. Watson's entire frame twitches, Jim can tell he's barely stopping himself from... what? Rushing to Jim's aid? Comforting him? They both know it's useless, and there is nothing the good doctor can do but assuage his own conscience with meaningless actions. Thankfully, he lets it be.

“Hell, no,” Jim grates out once he has his breathing back under control. “No, I'm not coming back to this dull rock. Not in a million years.”

The thin line of Watson's mouth clearly conveys the doctor's concerns about Moriarty's mental health.

It almost makes Jim start laughing again. “Gonna miss me?”

Watson gives a tired snort. “Hell, no.” He looks away, stares off into the distance. A silence descends between them, and before Jim can think of a fun way to disrupt it, Watson speaks again, grim and quiet. “Sherlock will.”

And _oh_ , isn't that the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to him? The smile lighting up Jim's face is genuine, he can't help it, and maybe dying like this isn't so bad after all. Leave Sherlock pining after him, mourning what could have been, condemned to live out his life among sheep. It is a tragedy, and don't those make the sexiest plays?

Watson looks deeply unsettled by his reaction, which brightens up Jim's mood even more. “I was going to take him with me, you know?” he whispers. “Give him a golden ticket out of this world.”

Watson's expression turns angry at first, then sickened and pitying, but Jim ignores him. He stares at the grey ceiling of the warehouse, imagining that it is the night sky. Countless times has he lain under the stars and wished he could just fall into the cosmos, embrace the darkness and sleep. It is a shame he cannot see them once more, but he knows they're there, waiting, and it's enough.

Breathing is getting harder, and a slow-spreading numbness eats away at the pain, all good signs, but he can't help the occasional flutter of fear in his heart. This is enough to anger him, finally, for there is _nothing_ to fear about death, death is _good_ , it is peace and quiet and warmth, it is a never-unravelling cocoon, it is all the things he's never had in his life, and it can't come quickly enough now.

He mercilessly squashes down the whimpering animal in his brain. It's not enough, and he's filled with the desire to lash out.

“He'll get bored,” he tells Watson, a vicious grin on his face. “Bored with you. With all you little... little people.”

Watson looks at him steadily. “He'll find something else to occupy himself with.”

Jim's grin widens at that. “Yes. Yes, he will. He'll find-” he spasms with a cough, gulps down a difficult breath. “-a solution. A s-seven per cent sol-” The next breath he takes delivers no oxygen to his body, his lungs too full with blood, and they burn. His whole body shakes with tension. Suddenly he's on his side, spewing out blood, and he _knows_ he didn't move on his own, but for a second he cannot fathom how it happened. Then the fog clears from his brain, and as John Watson eases him back to his previous position, he shoots the man a withering glare. The infuriating doctor ignores him, takes off his own jacket, rolls it up, and places it under Jim's head. By now Jim would snarl and bite if he had the energy.

For once, Watson's mediocre mind is able to deduce his thoughts. “This won't delay it much,” he says quietly as he props up Jim's upper body with the makeshift pillow, “It's just...” Watson trails off, can't think of an excuse, can't even be honest and say _I'm a coward, I'm a bleeding heart, I want to heal you even though I want you to die_.

Jim sneers, he opens his mouth to make his scathing observations, but – the fog descends on his brain once more. He struggles against it, clinging to thoughts and words, but they dissolve into smoke and he can't remember what he wanted them for. Watson's face hovers over him and he wants to say something to it, claw its eyes out, hear it speak, but shapes and colours lose meaning. 

He can't breathe.

The world tilts and goes black. He can't hold on, he scrambles for purchase but there's nothing to grab onto, he's slipping, he's falling – he's terrified. He cannot make a sound, and he's utterly alone.

A hand takes hold of his.

The grip is warm and firm and he stops falling. He is still dizzy, still blind and voiceless but he hears a voice, soothing and somehow familiar. The voice speaks to him – he no longer knows the words but he understands all the same. _It's alright_ , the voice says. _It's fine. Everything's going to be alright._

Everything's going to be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic and I would appreciate constructive criticism. Thank you very much for reading.


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